


To Byzantium

by flyingtothemoon



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Allusions to Christianity, Angst, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, LMAO, Magical Realism, PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics, Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, Sort Of, WC 2016, WC 2019, You Have Been Warned, at least i think it's hopeful, basically yuzu and his rivals, discussion of sporting injury, historical allusions, idk man these tags are a mess im sorry, introspective, reflections on career, yeah pchiddy is in this too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28906731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingtothemoon/pseuds/flyingtothemoon
Summary: There are four phases to the life of a King. Yuzuru Hanyu is well-acquainted with all of them."He knows the stories, knows how they go, knows how they all end. Mortality claims them, or war, or carnage… or dissension. It begins with whispers — tentative plans. Then they become bolder. Conspirators meet each other in their palaces and estates; promises are exchanged. Deals, made.The headman's axe swoops down."
Relationships: Javier Fernández & Yuzuru Hanyu, Nathan Chen & Yuzuru Hanyu, Yuzuru Hanyu & Brian Orser
Comments: 12
Kudos: 12





	1. THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON

**Author's Note:**

> hi! so uh, i guess i wrote rpf... but please don't take this as a legitimate reading of any real life events. it's 100% fiction. so yeah. i got the idea from the B.ESP commentary of WC 2014, when one of the two (I can't remember which) declared "and here he is. the king, at just 19". idk why, but that throwaway statement resonated with me.
> 
> the title "To Byzantium" will be elucidated in part two, which is indeed written and will be posted in a few days (but if you can guess where it's from, do say in the comments!)
> 
> anyways, #dissolvetheisu my lovelies. cowardly snakes.

**I.** **_Accession_ **

In the end, the Crown is thrust upon his head. He’d wanted it — no, he’d _coveted_ it — from the moment he first tasted glory. Stood just two steps below Patrick, he vowed that the anthem being played next time would be Japanese, not Canadian.

But nineteen is too early; he’s too young, too unprepared. A green boy, while Patrick is the heir apparent, because by any account Yuzuru is only third in the line of succession. Maybe second, if we’re to be generous.

The Final had been a freak accident. No one gave it too much weight — Patrick made sure he knew it.

_Let Yuzuru have this_ , he’d said, with an air of casual indifference that Yuzuru only knew to be feigned with hindsight _._

He'd caught the other man’s eye, inadvertently, during the banquet held afterwards. The quiet fury there had not been surprising. What did surprise was the desperation which lingered behind that veneer of anger. He'd looked away quickly, but not quick enough that it wasn’t etched into his mind.

_You can have your moment here, but Sochi is mine,_ they'd whispered. A prayer, not a declaration.

All things considered, he isn’t ready to be first after the short.

Of course, he has told himself that he’s come to win, but then all of the top skaters do the same. No one consciously goes into an event thinking that sixth place will be fine. You can’t compete like that. It’s just not sustainable.

The only way to endure the long days of hard practice, and the bruises that bloom on top of bruises like some perverse palimpsest, is to imagine yourself placed number one, sat on the highest seat in the realm. So Yuzuru aimed for gold without expecting it, without really thinking about what comes next.

Elation follows him like a cloud; he cannot shake it off even if he knows he should. That night he lies awake, unable to sleep, body taut like a bowstring because the free is in less than 24 hours, and his lead is not so large that it won’t all slip away if he messes up. When he finally closes his eyes, his dreams are filled with falls and pops and other ignominious ends. The salchow, the toe loop, the flip. Each eludes him, and it’s like his body is heavy: tied down to the earth by an invisible, inexorable force.

The day of the free skate, Yuzuru wakes to tangled, sweat-soaked sheets. He swallows and prays for the strength to see this through and prays he will not squander this chance. But he goes down on the quad sal anyways, just as he did in his night terrors.

Ruthless cold against his body — and then animal panic takes over.

_Don’t stop. Don’t fall. Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think._

He doesn’t really remember the rest of that skate, though he does recall the litany echoing endlessly in his mind.

Brian’s face at the end says it all. He’s not disappointed, but there’s no euphoria to be found anywhere in that gaze. It wasn’t bad, wasn’t the disaster he dreamt again and again, but it also wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the crowning, undoubtable Olympic free skate everyone hopes for.

No crying, he tells himself as he makes his way to the kiss and cry. This is what you anticipated anyways. Did you really think you were going to win?

Yet somehow or other, Patrick flounders. Maybe the expectation was too much for him too. Or maybe tonight is just the anticlimax. Or maybe there is some God out there, watching out for Yuzuru. In any case, he is not so good of a person that he doesn’t rejoice a little, secure in the knowledge that he is not the only weak, fallible human here.

Then it hits him that Patrick’s loss means he’s won.

Around him, a sudden change is in the air, a new electricity. It spreads like ripples on a pond surface. First the people around him begin to murmur, then the excitement grows. There are smiles and laughs and congratulations, but also a few dark looks. Some official from the federation whose name he can't remember pulls him aside from where his little, impromptu press conference has formed.

“Have you decided?”

Yuzuru can only look on in confusion.

“Your Regnal name,” she elaborates.1

“Is there… something wrong with my name?”

An awkward pause.

“No. But you can change it, if you want. Most people do; most people want to shed their previous selves. Your life will be different from now on. This is your chance to become someone new.”  
  


“Then I’d like mine to stay the way it is, if it’s all the same. I am Yuzuru Hanyu, and I am neither greater nor lesser than he.”

Even as he says it, a little seed of doubt implants itself in his heart. He decides to shelve this conversation in the back of his mind, like he does with all other inexplicable things.

She gives him an odd, assessing look in response, but acquiesces.

Later they put the medal around his neck, and it feels less like a weight has been lifted, and more as if one so much greater than the last has settled over his shoulders. Mao, Daisuke, Shizuka — all of them were wrong about this.

Winning the Olympics is no relief.

Winning the Olympics is expectation, and a foretelling: a prophecy he’s scared he won’t fulfill.

They look at him and they see the future, even though he’s nineteen, _just_ nineteen years of age. Overhead the trumpets blow and the seraphim sing. The people hear it proclaimed far and wide.

Only then does Yuzuru finally understand the gravity of what has happened. It hits him like a flash of lightning during a summer storm — illuminating the darkness of the night and revealing, in one glorious moment, the truth of a previously obscure landscape.

The old King is dead,  
  


and his successor is but a teenager.

Hark, the angels cry: _Glory be._

**_II. Coronation_ **

World, Olympic, and Grand Prix Final champion, and yet he knows that there are many who doubt his place in this sport, who still think that he lucked his way to gold. _The Olympic Champion who fell_ , they snicker behind his back.

They are anonymous cowards according to Brian: people who have never achieved anything in their own lives, and so derive joy from trivializing the accomplishments of others. Just as specks of dust in the air do not obscure the splendour of warm sunshine cast through the window, these comments are insignificant things. They shouldn’t matter to him… but they do.

His eye keeps getting caught on those minute defects, the little dark spots that stain and blight the otherwise unblemished whole. He cannot bear the thought that there are those from his own country — those whom he claims to represent every time he dons a Team Japan jacket — who still consider him a fraud. _And they also blame me for Tatsuki, for Daisuke,_ he thought with no small amount of bitterness.

So fresh off the humiliating experience of Skate Canada, Yuzuru is determined not to repeat his past mistakes. Nothing less than gold and nothing less than perfection will satisfy.

The announcer calls his name, first in Japanese and then in English. Somehow he isn’t nervous. For the first time in his life, he is not hindered by his lungs or his mind. Instead, he is liberated.

Standing in the centre of a quiet, anticipant stadium Yuzuru thinks:  
  


_You are the onmyōji. The oracle. Life and death are yours to command._

All doubt banished, all impurity cleansed, and all weakness eradicated.

And his confidence is justly rewarded.

Even so, there’s a moment when they announce the final score where Yuzuru can’t believe it. Three hundred always seemed so far away and distant: an enviable but elusive fantasy.

Now he has surmounted that hill, he’s met with sunlight so brilliant and dazzling it burns his eyes. He blinks. For a few minutes, he cannot see anything but the glowing field of victory. He wonders if he’s finally made it.

Then it sinks in that three hundred will be the number he is measured against from now until the end of his career, from now until the end of his _life_ , and all his joy turns to ashes.

The cheers in the stadium grow to be deafening.

“I have no words.” _Brian._

“We are so proud of you.” _Mother._

Voices overlap until he can no longer distinguish one from another. They coalesce into a cacophonous maelstrom of sound.

You have made history. Congratulations.

The holy oil drips slowly down his face and his chest, pooling in his hands. Under the lights, the glistening liquid is warm and, he swears, _glowing_.

To his left and right, the others — the Princes and Dukes and Marquesses, and the whole motley lot — look on in awe and jealously. All in cue, they lift up their coronets and chant.

From somewhere in the wings above, hidden in shadows, beseeches a voice, loud and clear:

_Stand firm, and hold fast from henceforth the place which is now your hereditary right, committed to you by Him, the king of kings and lord of lords_.2

He shudders because those words seem like a warning just as much as they are an adulation.

Then it’s over; Yuzuru is anointed and crowned. He hopes he looks dignified in this moment, but he knows he’s dripping with sweat, his hair matted and ugly. He surveys the crowd and thinks: This is your King. Your indisputable and absolute King.

Later, it’s a joke when Javi kneels down on the floor of the green room, but he can hear the words regardless: _…I do become your liegeman of life, and limb, and earthly worship…_

Fealty ought to feel triumphant. Instead, he’s only reminded of the caprice of public opinion, the shadow which looms behind him — his own liegeman — and what will happen should he fall short.

… _And faith and truth I will bear unto you._ 3

With that, Yuzuru is transformed. He is become divine: the will of the heavens made flesh and blood.

But for those 300 points, Yuzuru is terrified that he's also signed away his last remaining rights to human weakness. That’s the problem with having made history — you also _become_ it.

You become the black letters printed on the newspaper; you become the negative space full of veiled remarks and pernicious insinuations. You emerge from the dust as a thing — you are the orb and the sceptre and the circlet of gold.

**_III. Reign_ **

Most fairytales end at this point, with the new King or Queen consecrated on the throne. Eternal, unimpeachable, and perfect. The disciple, who agreed on the price of the master, is awarded with everlasting peace.

_Paradise,_ the stories seem to insinuate. _And the Prince woke to find himself in Paradise._

They never tell you just how hard it is to hang on to the Crown, Yuzuru thinks bitterly. The wretched thing sits crooked on his head, never quite fitting as if by design, and threatening to fall off at even the gentlest disturbance. His vantage point at the top is precarious at best. Hands reach for him from every direction, pushing, pulling, shaking, grasping for that thin band of gold.

At Boston, later that season, it comes dangerously close to slipping from his temples when the salchow abandons him, and what was once commanding becomes desperate. He's forced to chase the music as the performance begins to spiral. Down, down, down. The ice’s surface has never felt harder.

In the kiss and cry, he is numb. He doesn’t hear the numbers as they’re announced. He doesn’t hear anything; his world has become narrow. He reaches for the comforting texture of Pooh’s fur, then belatedly realizes that his gloves are still on. Only Brian’s hand on his shoulder grounds him.

“You’re okay. Just breathe, Yuzu,” whispers his coach, not wanting the mic to pick it up.

“Breathe.”

Paranoia creeps up. He swears there are shadows dancing at his feet, nipping at the faint ring of light which follows him wherever he goes, and which is growing fainter by the minute.

Limbs turned to stone, he trudges to the green room. There he waits with trepidation for Javi to finish, though he knows he’s lost – the roar of the crowd confirms it. On cue, the camera pans to his face with the hope of catching some unflattering expression of displeasure. He doesn’t give them the satisfaction.

Javi arrives at the waiting area, beaming a thousand-watt smile. He wants so desperately to be happy for him, genuinely happy, but the font of grace inside him has dried up. Still they hug, as tightly and desperately as ever. The champion releases a sigh of relief, then reaches over to pat Yuzuru’s thigh in comfort.

“You did good.”

Yuzuru doesn’t make reply. The other man’s hand burns like a hot brand, and it’s all he can do not to flinch away from the touch.

He manages to avoid Javi for most of the banquet, not wanting to hear the congratulations for the defending (reigning) world champion. They meet by accident instead at the hotel, caught by the fact that they’re sharing the same corridor. Under the dim lighting, Yuzuru can just make out a pale, flickering glow at his feet.

“Yuzu, what’s going on? You look…”

He trails off.

Yuzuru thinks back on the last four years, thinks about the weak underbelly that he has exposed to this man one time too many. Some strange emotion must flicker across his face because Javi approaches him, concern colouring his voice.

“Yuzu talk to me. What’s wrong?”

He makes the unilateral decision then and there that he needs to protect himself. Javi takes another step forward, hand coming up to catch Yuzuru. He moves out of reach.

With his media smile plastered on his face, Yuzuru placates: “I’m fine, Javi. Congratulations. You were good. I need to go to room now. Tired.”

From the look on Javi’s face, he doesn’t buy it.

“Please Yuzuru. Let’s not become like this.”

He doesn’t elaborate on what ‘this’ means, but Yuzuru knows. Frozen, polite smiles. Pictures for the media. Awkward hugs and handshakes. ‘This’ is the uncomfortable silence when the curtains draw, and the two of you stop playing your roles, and you realize that you no longer know what to say to the other.

Sucking in a breath, he repeats more firmly: “Good night, Javi.”

Maybe Javi takes Yuzuru’s smile to be patronizing, or maybe Yuzuru’s finally hit a limit, because his gaze hardens.

“Fine. Have it your way then, champion.” – a cruel reversal of the words he uttered last year.

The slam of Javi’s door echoes with a kind of finality, and Yuzuru’s heart breaks a little. Almost immediately, he wants to take it back, aches to catch the words which have left his mouth before they dissipate and become reality. But the edict has been signed in ink, and there is no reneging anymore. The only thing he can do is curl up in his bed, sobbing into the white, white sheets, wondering: _must I be touched by no one?_

Come next year, they are noticeably different. Remote. People whisper about it behind his back. They blame him for the rift (and they’re not wrong to do so, because Yuzuru’s the one with a sick heart). They’re not Yagudin-Plushenko cold, but Yuzuru sticks to the Japanese contingent, content with teasing Shoma, or laughing with Satoko.

Meanwhile, Javi flits around the other Europeans. Lingers with Maia and Alex. There’s an uncomfortable divide as if everyone, reluctantly, has fallen in line, and chosen sides. Slowly it becomes evident: they’ve left fault lines in their wake.

A majority of the season passes in this sort of limbo, with Yuzuru fighting off the pack that hounds his every step. Then Helsinki comes.

Under 100 is unacceptable. He’s trained too hard to end up fifth, to slink away from the scene like a dying dog. For better or for worse, the Crown has landed on his head. He intends to keep it there.

When he goes to skate the free, he doesn’t so much skate as he _flies,_ as if some other-worldly being has taken possession of his body. For those short – yet somehow infinite – moments, he is elevated beyond their world to a different, higher plane of existence. His blades are light; his landings float. _Touched by the divine_ , some will whisper later. _Beloved of God_ , they’ll say.

Yuzuru can’t help but let his satisfaction show when he takes his final bow.

223.20.

No one is surprised when he does win.

The gold they drape around his neck is nice, but it’s not the reconfirmation that he craves. That comes almost a year later when, doped up on painkillers and running on nothing but hot air, Yuzuru steps onto the ice at Pyeongchang and vows that this will not be another Sochi.

Even if he cannot skate again, even if he cannot _walk_ again, Yuzuru will be damned if he doesn’t win the Olympics.

His will and determination carry him through an excellent short program, and then through the hardest four minutes and thirty seconds of his life.

Sal — toe — flip — and his right ankle is _burning._ But he has five more jumping passes to get through, so Yuzuru grits his teeth and repeats to himself that he is a _warrior._

(A true warrior, like the Kings of old.)

The second salchow is a little tight, but he manages to tag on the triple toe. Then — _shit_ — he can’t hold the landing of his last quad and has to step out. There’s no time to think about the loss of points now, and he doesn’t have enough practice to change his layout drastically. He just needs to land the last three jumps. The axel combination and the triple loop are both old friends, neither failing him in his hour of need.

Then comes the final test: the cursed lutz. From the moment he takes off, Yuzuru knows that it is all wrong. His weight is too far forward, his axis is off, and at this rate, he’s going to plant face first into the ice. But, as if time has slowed down just for this moment, he sees with clarity what he needs to do to save the jump. His toe-pick digs into the ice with determination.

Yes. Yes! He’s done it! There may have been some imperfections, but in his heart of hearts, he knows it is enough. With utter joy and abandon, he throws himself into the choreo sequence.

Hydroblade. The ina bauer.

Then the last, triumphant note. 

Yuzuru clutches his right ankle and whispers his gratitude.

All around him the Japanese flags rise as one: one being, one heart, one mind. From North, East, South, West, he hears the call of eternity.

Quite predictably, the tears fall when it becomes official that he’s the champion. But they are happy ones, shed in joy and not grief. He smiles, and jokes, and takes pictures — all the way until Javi pulls him into a deep hug and whispers _this is my last competition with you._

Part of him wants to shake Javi and demand _why_. Wants to demand more time. Wants to demand, however selfishly, that he stay. He doesn’t think he can do this alone. He can’t even face the vultures that swarm their little intimate moment with cameras and microphones all by himself. He’s forgotten how to be strong.

But mostly, Yuzuru is resigned. ‘Liegeman of life and limb’ was always a promise with an expiry date. He knew this; he was the one rushing to the end. And intellectually, he had always been aware that this competition would probably be Javier’s last. It was only sensible. After all, he won’t make it another four years to Beijing, and regardless it’s better to retire with grace, with an Olympic medal around your neck instead of a reputation smeared by futile attempts to climb the new world order of quad lutzes and quad flips.

But there’s a gnawing anxiety he can’t ignore, because which of the other vows made to his face will be broken too?

He looks to the ice and his heart hardens. This is meant to be the happiest moment of his life. No, this _is_ the happiest moment of his life. Squaring his shoulders, Yuzuru forces his smile even wider. He won’t be miserable today.

Throughout the victory ceremony, the gala practice, and the final performance, the smile stays firmly on his face. He even starts to believe it by the end. Yes, this is the relief you’re meant to feel. This is what Shizuka spoke of.

It is harder to fake happiness after all the celebrations are finished and done with, when Yuzuru is back in Japan and being corralled from interview to guest appearance to parade. It's a process he’s used to; except this time, it’s unmistakably different. Different from Barcelona, different from even Sochi.

Eyes follow him wherever he goes. People circle him like they can’t believe he’s real, and they’re afraid to get too close. It sends shivers down his body.

When he visits the station, they lay down a red carpet so he need not tread on the same ground as everyone else. He’s displayed on parade, and they line up by the thousands to catch a fleeting glimpse. They meet him, and they break down crying when he opens his mouth.

They look at him and they see marble: a stately, Pheidian thing, cast first in bronze and then in stone.4 They reach for him, for a gilded statue inlaid with sparkling jewels.

But marble statues shatter when they fall, and Yuzuru can already feel the cracks.

  
  


—

Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood  
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,  
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,  
For you have but mistook me all this while:  
I live with bread like you, feel want,  
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,  
How can you say to me, I am a king?  
( _Richard II_ 3.2. 172-177)

* * *

1 The concept of a “regnal name” denoted with roman numerals (ex. James I of England, Pope Pius XII) is specifically European, but throughout history and throughout the world, sovereigns have taken on different names at their accession. Reasons differ: political, religious, or personal.

2 Adapted (quite liberally) from a Latin formula which has been recited in different variations at coronations since medieval times. “ _Sta et retine amodo locum quem hucusque paterna successione tenuisti hereditario iure tibi delegatum per autoritatem dei omnipotentis…”_

3 Borrowed from the Queen of England’s coronation. The oath sworn by the Duke of Edinburgh, as well as her son some ten years later.

4 As in, Pheidias, the renowned Greek sculptor of the 5th century BCE. His works include the (lost) Athena Parthenos and the (lost) Zeus at Olympia.


	2. FEARFUL IS THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title "To Byzantium" is a reference to this line in the Yeats poem: "and therefore I have sailed the seas and come/to the holy city of Byzantium". the excerpt at the end is taken from the same poem, but doesn't contain this line, which is why I thought I ought to explain the rather obscure reference lol. hopefully it'll all make sense at the end!
> 
> (also there has been some fairly disheartening news lately, with people maliciously misinterpreting things that were said by yuzu many years ago... i hope this will cheer some of you up)

**IV.** **_Abdication_ **

Former kings are rare creatures, seeing as former kings are usually dead. He’s not there yet; his heart still pumps blood and his lungs still fill with air. Though for some reason, Yuzuru can see the gloom on the distant horizon.

He knows the stories, knows how they go, knows how they all end. Mortality claims them, or war, or carnage… or dissension. It begins with whispers — tentative plans. Then they become bolder. Conspirators meet each other in their palaces and estates; promises are exchanged. Deals, made.

Assured by their shared duplicity, the barons revolt. A foreign army lands on your shores, a new King is crowned, and then it’s all over. Just like that.

After, you are led out onto the rickety wooden platform, hands bound and chafing at the rope. You wear a bright, crimson red, and hope that someone in the jeering crowd has some pity, _some_ sympathy, for you.1

You try and summon some anger. You want to rage and curse the fickle people who look on with cold, uncaring eyes, though they professed their love to you just two sunrises ago. But the only thing you feel is fear: an arresting, glacial terror.

In desperation, you pray: _Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation._ 2

Then the headman’s axe swoops down, as it always does.

For Yuzuru the fall happens at Rostelecom.

Otoñal had gone near perfectly — an easy world record, and he wasn’t even out of breath. Yuzuru felt like he was walking on air, not unlike in Sochi. That should have been his first sign of things to come.

He is distracted, the next day in practice. Mindlessly, he runs through his program. Mindlessly, he sets up for his first jump. Mindlessly, he hits the ice. Hard. A searing, all-too-familiar pain rips through his ankle, and it’s all crashing back. The dread, the misery… the abject horror of being vulnerable and helpless.

Trying to disguise it, he rises slowly, then circles around the ice. The feeling of Brian’s eyes on him tells Yuzuru that no one is fooled. They know what’s happened, just like he knows it on some instinctual level.

It’s NHK all over again. (But this time he chooses to skate. It’s not that bad, he tells himself.)

Only after the competition, after limping out to the podium in crutches, does Yuzuru give himself time to think. This pattern is becoming too evident, the sequence of events too predictable, his actions too rote. He should not know the crinkle of the blister pack so well, nor the feeling of pills as he swallows them dry.

And the kick is that this time it happens on the loop. No, not the axel that he’d dreamt of. Not the lutz that sometimes haunts his nightmares. But the _loop_. Always temperamental in its quadruple form, but still irrevocably _his_ jump.

He wonders how he’ll carry on, if every season is going to be like this. If he’s destined to this Sisyphean torment, his toiling accomplishments turned to dust at the end of every day. Himself, reborn each time with weaker and weaker bones, only to begin anew.

At first, the prognosis is optimistic. He’ll still be able to compete at the Final; the doctor assures him.

Two weeks later, when the pain remains ever present and he’s made only a pitiful amount of headway into PT, they backtrack and tell him “Nationals”. A week before Nationals, Yuzuru still doesn’t have all his triples back and, reticently, is forced to withdraw for the third year in a row.

He watches on TV as Shoma receives the trophy.

Three weeks before Worlds, Yuzuru has yet to skate a single clean run through of either program and he leaves every session feeling hot tears burn at the back of his eyes. Post-Olympics, the club has gathered an impressive number of new skaters, which Yuzuru wouldn’t mind, except for the fact that they gape and gawk at him now like he is a wounded bird, giving him a wide berth on the ice. In their eyes, he’s a train wreck just waiting to happen.

He misses Javi. Javi wasn’t afraid to come up to him and give him a hug, but that comfort is a right he abdicated himself in exchange for Olympic gold.

One day, when he falls on four quad toes in a row and the sympathetic eyes that follow him are just too oppressive to bear, he snaps at Tracy.

“Stop saying it’s going to work out every day like I’m idiot!”

Yuzuru knows he’s fucked up when he sees the hurt in her eyes. Luckily for him, some upbeat pop song is blaring obnoxiously through the speakers. None of the other skaters hear his outburst, but the chasmal silence that gapes between him and Tracy is accusing in its frigidity. Brian, who is standing just two feet away, furrows his brow in disapproval.

He’s not surprised when Brian calls him into his office after his last session is finished.

“Yuzuru… I know you’re under a lot of pressure,” he begins, “but we’re here to work _with_ you. Not against you.”

When Yuzuru doesn’t respond, he continues: “You don’t have to shoulder this all by yourself. Don’t keep it inside until it all bursts at once.”

Sometimes Yuzuru wishes Brian would just speak plainly instead of obliquely dodging the point. It’s hard to verbalize a reply to Brian’s circuitous probing, but he tries, nevertheless, to find the words.

“I know, and ‘m sorry, Brian. But… after last year, it’s like everyone’s expecting… expecting… ”

Yuzuru trails off.

“Like they’re expecting another miracle, right?” Brian fills in for him.

In lieu of a verbal affirmation, Yuzuru nods.

“And it’s like… it’s like, I am doing everything right _but it’s still not working!_ ”

Brian sighs. “Yuzuru, what you pulled off at Pyeongchang was, well, I have no words for it. Preternatural? Inexplicable? But we have to be realistic _._ Despite what others may think, what others may expect, you are not superhuman, and…”

He pauses, as if to give Yuzuru some time to ponder his words. To take it in, lessen the hurt a little.

_“_ A messed up ankle is a messed up ankle, and you have been dealing with serious injuries for years now. Even if you listen to the doctors, even if you do _everything right_ , it may not be enough— ”

Today must be a day for unnatural outbursts because Yuzuru interrupts Brian’s speech by promptly bursting into tears.

“Brian _,_ ” he hiccups, “It _can’t_ end like this _._ ”

Another sob overtakes his ability to speak and he hunches over, hiding his face in his hands. Brian must be at a loss for what to do because Yuzuru does not cry like this, at least not in front of him.

Sure, tears of happiness, when his ebullience and joy manifest themselves in physical form. But this kind of anguish? He hasn’t let out anything even passably similar since the Cup of China.

A freak collision in the six warm up — what were the chances? For that long hour between the accident and when the final results were announced, cold terror pierced him to the core. His mind swirled with looming shadows and the overwhelming anxiety that he, the Olympic champion, would fail to even make the Final. He’d be the laughingstock of the sport. Everyone that said he didn’t deserve the Olympic title would have further proof of their accusations.

He cried, at the end of that solemn hour, out of pure exhaustion. He was _second._ Second was enough to make it to the Final, enough to give him a fighting chance. Fate had not won out over him. He would not lose his seat mere months after acceding to it.

Now he sobs because the image of the future, once so clear in his mind’s eye, is blurry and unfocused — like a mirage that might just be a trick of the eye. Kaleidoscoped, fractured. Lens of a camera crushed underfoot.

Try as he might to picture them, the dreams he used to see so lucidly and detailed are out of his reach. One by one, each flickering star has been snuffed out, leaving him with nothing but the ever-expanding darkness of the night sky.

Come Worlds that year, Yuzuru remembers this conversation with bitter accuracy. He’s not sure if it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, or if the writing was already on the wall, but either way the end result is the same: he’s going to lose.

This hole is too deep even for him to climb out of — and yet he still has to skate. He has to skate, _skate_ , _SKATE._ The word drums in his head to the beat of a never-ending funeral procession.

As he hears his name announced for the free skate, Yuzuru chances a glance at the stands. Hundreds — no, _thousands_ — of Japanese flags. It recalls him to his last great stage, over a year ago, when he’d taken to the ice and told himself that he could do this because he was a _warrior_.

Today he is only a soldier, beleaguered by a war of attrition, in danger of collapsing before his sentry-march is over and his shoes filled by another prepared to carry on the fight.

Warrior-kings live on in infamy. They are the stuff of legends: the great Alexander, Arthur of Albion, Alfred who united the Saxons. Among them there is no such thing as the King who must fight by himself, wading through the mud like a common infantry man.

He crouches down to take his opening pose, and has the distinct impression that his body is shaking. He wonders if this is what Atlas felt like, with the weight of the world bearing down on his shoulders. Without his permission, the beginning of his free skate has taken on a wholly different meaning.

Somehow or other he makes it through the next four minutes, fighting for every element. And they are four excruciating minutes: two hundred and forty seconds of agonizing, bone-deep pain.

It’s not the same as his Olympic free skate, even though he stubbornly refuses to let any jump go. No, this doesn’t even begin to approach that triumphant sprint to the finish line — the end is all wrong. His right arm ought to be reaching upwards to the heavens in exultation, in celebration of a victorious return, not in this pathetic supplication.

Nevertheless he’s done his duty. The rest is out of his control.

(Nathan wins. The salchow — it was too much. Too dear.)

He dreads the medal ceremony, not because he doesn’t know how to lose. On the contrary, he has learned and perfected the art of smiling while wearing silver.

Nagashima approaches him with a smile and a bouquet of flowers—

it’s that look in their eyes that he can’t stand.

_We made you what you are_ , their beatific smiles say. _We can unmake you just as easily._

We can unravel that thread, undo that robe. The power you wield _we_ gave unto you. Do not test us, for we will melt down your golden crown, and set fire to your home, and then what kind of King will you be, standing there alone in your shameful nakedness?

Softer, more placid voices also urge him, taking a different approach: Go quietly. Step aside with grace, and you may retain your dignity. Don’t cause a fuss now, you feckless creature.

Then they caution, not with threats, but with an affected warmth, like a parent schooling their child:

Quickly. Do not linger too long. The black earth is yawning. Go while you still can, before your time is finally up.

Social principles dictate that he bow and prostrate himself before them. He smiles and prays it does not look plastic. Or maybe plastic isn’t the right word. He smiles and prays it does not look brittle as stone, crumbling like fossil.

The American anthem blares from all around him, ugly and grating. He wants to be away from here. He wants to hide away, curl up in his hotel bed and do nothing but listen to music for hours. He wants to nurse his wounds and mourn the end of his reign alone.

However, galas must be skated, interviews conducted, soundbites given.

Haru yo koi is meant to be hopeful. Yuzuru had come up with the idea immediately after Pyeongchang, back when he’d truly believed that the coming of spring — and the cessation of pain which it heralds — is an inevitability of life. That there would always be another glittering field of victory.

He gets now that springtime’s arrival is but a reminder of a distant, untenable future. Flowers bloom. They bloom, and they die, and they bloom, and they die.

The last notes of the grieving melody resonate through the arena before fading away to nothing. He turns his head to look up, past the banners, past the flags, past the lights, and towards the vaulting ceiling.

Just for a split second, he sees something beyond the black. It dissipates before he can identify it, but it was there. A faint, white glow. Then he looks down at the ice, and wraps his arms around his body as if to protect himself from the external world.

Deep in that hell of silt and clay _are_ the beautiful and exquisite, he realizes. And like the forceful lotus which fights its way out of the murky depths, he’ll wither away when the winds of winter blow. All things have got to return to the mud from which they were born.

He’s obliged to greet the audience’s roaring applause.

“Thank you,” he mouths, because that’s only appropriate.

_I’m sorry,_ he thinks.

They board the bus that’ll return them to the hotel. Almost immediately, the others form into their little groups; fragments of English and Russian and French and Japanese fly around in a veritable storm of conversation.

Something about the end of the season is freeing, even for those who fell short of their aspirations. It’s usually the same for Yuzuru, but tonight he doesn’t have the energy. Tonight, he sequesters himself in a secluded corner and puts in his headphones and prays no one will try to talk to him. Around him, he realizes, are more strangers than friends. The people he knows — the people he grew up with. They have all moved on.

He understands now what it is to live beyond your time.

There is a stickiness to his throat, a portent for things to come. But he can’t afford to break down yet, not when there’ll surely be more cameras when they get back to the hotel, so he tamps down on the urge to cry.

Unfortunately, this mask of neutrality only holds up until the elevator doors close behind him. Safe behind that barrier, he feels his genial expression slip. What it is replaced by, he is too scared to check.

That’s when he realizes he’s not alone.

Across from him, on the other side of the oddly vast elevator floor, stands Nathan with a stricken look to his face.

Oh. He must’ve seen it.

Why else would the shiny new world champion with his shiny new world record look so bleak?

The bitter part of Yuzuru wants to laugh. _This is your future too,_ he wants to say. _Look at me carefully. Look at the fissures, the rifts, the parts where I have split open._

This same piece of him thinks: let him wear the Crown. Let him see how he likes it, five years from now. I wonder if he’ll thank or curse me.

“Are you… okay?”

There is a careful tone to his voice, but he sounds genuine. A little bit scared.

Rapidly, Yuzuru is pulled back from his bitter musings. Nathan’s only a child – an innocent, unknowing, unseeing child, he realizes. Twenty years old, but a child nonetheless. A child they will tear up and devour.

The smile returns to his face.

“Fine, I’m fine, thank you.”

He knows there are tears in his eyes.

They want him to capitulate and lower the drawbridge. If he gets down on his knees, presents himself before the new conqueror, he will walk away with _some_ dignity instead of none. But, Yuzuru reflects, he has had his dignity much longer than he has had the Crown. He had it even at 16, crawling on the ground as the sea rose to devour his home, and black snow fell like ash from the skies. It crystallized in the smoldering heat that flared to life from within himself that day, when he decided that he was of worth – that he had the right to live even when so many others had died.

No priest bestowed that dignity upon him, and no prophet would be able to take it away.3

“Thank you,” he says again, trying to contain the sobs.

He’ll stay. Even if the water pushes against him, even if the stars never again align in his favour — he’ll stay.

He has to stay, to take some of the weight off this child’s shoulders.

His chest constricts painfully like he is 17 again, and struggling for breath after a merciless free. Like he is 19, standing before the Olympic rings for the very first time, and feeling the weight of all Japan crush him — suffocate him. Like he is 24, watching all his dreams and ambitions and secret desires slip between his fingers like so much sand in an hourglass, panicked and desperate. 

“Tha—” 

He can’t even get through the word. Instead, he shakes his head, tries to fill his lungs with air.

He is tired, and he’s drained, and he’s so, so weary. By now the ache in his ankle is a constant, but it’s more than just that.

He feels old. He feels _ancient_. He feels like his insides have gone to rust.

The crown atop his head is strangely light, as if what was once solid gold has been hollowed out, and in that empty space did fester the rot slowly eating away at his mind. The blight wrought on his heart. The decay in his soul.4

Perhaps it has always been this way, the gold only a spray-painted façade. Cheap and meaningless.

Suddenly he is filled with a disgust that overwhelms. The stickiness in his throat from before has grown into an uncomfortable knot. He can’t breathe. There are worms squirming atop his head, ants crawling on his skin, maggots writhing in his gut.

In a moment of clarity, he decides that the gangrenous limb must be severed, else the rot will truly claim him from the inside out.

_“Poisoned!”_ he cried.

Nathan startles, eyes growing ever wider. Mouth agape.

“Get this putrid, poisoned thing _off my head_.”

Some little bit of him knows he is speaking mad nonsense, but it is quashed and ignored. Yuzuru reaches up over his head, grapples for that despicable lump of metal, and flings it to the ground.

Then he crumples, a puppet whose strings have been cut. Somewhere beyond him a person makes worried noises.

A laugh bubbles to the surface.

The soothing breeze against his cheek has returned. The air smells fresh with dew.

He gulps a lungful.

What great relief he _finally_ feels.

* * *

That is no country for old men. The young  
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,  
—Those dying generations—at their song,  
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,  
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long  
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire  
And fastened to a dying animal  
It knows not what it is

* * *

[1] Mary Queen of Scots wore red, the colour of a martyr, at her execution.

[2] Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days Queen, recited Psalm 51 upon her execution. She was 16 at the time, and condemned for her father’s treason. I found the reference to blood-guilt a poignant double entendre.

[3] Solomon was anointed King of Israel by Zadok the priest and _Nathan the prophet_ – also the first lines of Handel’s most famous coronation anthem. I swear, this one just happened.

[4] “For within the hollow crown/ That rounds the mortal temples of a king/ Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits” (Richard II)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading & i would love to know your thoughts!


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